Heavy Duty Trouble (The Brethren Trilogy) (13 page)

‘So we need to keep the
barriers to entry high to keep ’
em out.’

Wibble wasn’t the only one who’d been reading the business books it seemed.

‘
And then there’s the plod. Get to be the top of the heap and you get to be top of the target list as well. It’s part of the price you pay, a cost of doing business.
’

‘So you’ve got to keep it
together. It’s a balancing act?’ I suggested.

And then he gave me Charlie’s rules of engagement.
The
Charlie balanced
business
score
card.

‘You’ve got to stay tough, make sure no one else gets out of line or thinks it’s worthwhile to chance their arm and have a pop
; And that
means that you’ve got to be absolutely and utterly rut
hless when you need to be
,
and
you need
to
make
sure that everyone, but everyon
e
,
who needs to know about it
,
gets the message when you do have to act.

‘
So sure, you want to deal with us and you come recommended from someone we trust, we’ll front you a supply of gear to move. It won’t be huge, we’ll want to manage our risk and see how you behave, but it’ll be enough to get you going. Do it right, and the next time it
’ll
be more. But you’d better fucking move it on and get us our dosh back
bang on
when
it’s
due
.
Do it wrong and you’re going to know all about it. Beli
e
ve me, no one gets to do it wrong twice, if you know what I mean
?
’

I guess I did really.

‘
But you’ve also got to keep it quiet enough so that you’re off the cops
’
radar. The cops are like everyone else, the
y’re all
just
nine
to
five
rs at the end of the day,
putting in their time until they can draw their pensions. I
t’s a
j
ob to them not a life like it is to us. They want to keep things quiet, they’ll put their resources where there’s noise becau
se that’s where they’ll get pre
ssure from the p
ols
, so managing the plod’s usually
quite
easy. You just keep things quiet enough that the
y
fuck off and bother
some
one
e
lse who’s being too noisy. Those street gangs stabbing eac
h
other ov
er which fucking shitty postcod
e they live in are great for us. Firstly they buy our dope even if they haven’t got a fucking clue that
it’s
us that they’re really dealing with, and then they give the plod enough to play with without bothering us.

‘
But you’ve got to keep focused on security
cos
as and when they do come at you, it
’ll
be
with everything they’ve got, phone intercepts, bugs, undercover guys, tempting people to rat, the
works.’

‘But the club’s never had a
n informer
over here
,
has it?’ I asked.
From my days covering crime for the paper I’d never
heard of
one. I knew t
here had been a few over the years in the US and elsewhere, but in my time reporting on the UK club I’d never come across even a sniff of a rat in any of the talks I’d had over the years with either cops or club members.

They prided themselves on the time and dedication it took to be a striker, it was one of the reasons they felt that they’d never ha
ve
an undercover cop infiltrate the club
,
as no
copper
would
ever
have the dedication or be prepared to put in the time to make it.

Or as far as they knew
,
I added to myself.

If the cops had been prepared to have undercover guys working for years on infiltrating environmental activists and spy on plans to demonstrate at coal fired power stations, it didn’t seem too far of a stretch to think that they might have been prepared to put the legwork and investment over the years into trying to get an agent or two inside the club.

But from the experience in the US and elsewhere the real danger wasn’t some super spy worming their way in
from the outside
as a
n
agent.

It was from existing members
already on the inside
rolling over under pressure and selling out their brothers.

Charlie seemed philosophical about it, as though it was a practical management and motivational problem that he’d been giving some thought to, which I guess for him it was.

‘Guys rat out for t
hree
reasons
,’ he mused
.

‘
First off it’s because
they think
either
someone else in the club is going to have them bumped, or they’re being shafted.

‘And the second is
cos
they’re not looked after. They go down, somebody sells their bike
and blows the cash on booze
, nobody visits them, nobody gives a shit, and they start to think so wh
ere
was all that brotherhood crap now
when I need it?’

He was getting more passionate now.

‘So if you want to stop rats, you’ve got to make sure that people are looked after and you’ve got to make sure that people really do watch their backs.

‘So anyone who fucks anyone over, without it being officially sanctioned is in deep, deep shit.

‘Cos yeah, if they are a rat, then you’ve gotta take action. No question, no mercy. But if they’re not a rat then they’re fucking sacrosanct.
The brotherhood has got to be real otherwise we’re all just going to end up rolling over and selling each other down the river.

‘Our brotherhood is our strength; it’s what makes us what we are. If we haven’t got that we ain’t shit, patch or no patch.’

‘And the third reason?’ I asked after a moment of silence, ‘you said there were three reasons why guys rat out?’

‘Oh yeah,’ he said quietly,
‘
Number three. T
hey
just
want out
,
and
they see
ratting
on the club a
s the only way to get it.’

‘And what’s the answer to that one?’ I asked.

‘None of your fucking business,’ he snapped back
,
which sort of stopped that conversation in its tracks.

*

‘So where is the money?’ I asked eventually.
According to Wibble, i
t was the real reason they had wanted me to get involved in this game of piggy-in-the-middle cum charades.
‘Wibble said to tell you that you need to draw some down. There’s a lot of guys inside, there’s
defence
bills to pay, there’s operating costs to meet outside…’

‘What money?’ he sounded puzzled at the question.

‘Damage’s cash,’ I explained, ‘ the money off the dealing…’

‘I don’t know what the fuck he’s talking about,’ said Charlie dismissively, ‘I ain’t got any of Damage’s cash.

‘Wibble was his number two, right up to the end, Wibble will be the one who has access to the cash. Tell him to stop fucking about and to get on with it. If we need cash back then Wibble needs to arrange to get it back from wherever the fuck he’s hidden it, if he can remember these days.’

What did he mean by that I wondered, but I didn’t have to wait for an explanation as Charlie got it off his chest.

‘Fuck it, these old timers are getting on my tits
,’ he said. ‘T
here’s more of the shit goes up their noses than out on the streets. If he ain’t got any money then that’s the reason.

‘They’ve made their dosh, and now they’re just getting sloppy. All they want to do is ride and party. Someone’s got to think about the future, how to take the club forwards.

‘Someone’s got to step up to be P.
’

‘And that someone…?’ I began.

‘Yeah that’s right,’ he said, ‘and you can run along and tell Wibble just as soon as you like.
The club’s under new management.’

Wednesday 17
th
February
2010

Day three and
I
was back in the interview room at Bullingdon with Wibble opposite me
across the table
once more
. He s
at
quietly
,
his expression distracted for a moment as he thought about what he’d just insisted I
repeat
once again
to him verbatim about my conversation with
Charlie
.

‘
And you’re sure that’s what he said?
’ he asked
at last, turning his gaze on me
, ‘
You didn’t think he was lying to you?
’

‘
No. I don’t think Charlie could ever be arsed to lie to me.
I doub
t that he thinks I’m worth the effort.
’

Wibble smiled at that.

‘
If he didn’t want me to know something he just wouldn’t say anything at all.
’

‘
So then I guess that confirms it
,’ he said quietly as he nodded to
himself
.

‘
Confirms what?
’

‘
That we’re short on cash and we could have a problem with paying the briefs.
’

I was
genuinely
surprised
at that. Whatever other problems they might have, given the money they
ha
d
to
have been making all th
e
se years, I hadn’t for a minute thought that cash flow was going to be one of them.

‘But surely there’s the dosh
around
to pay for that
,’ I asked, ‘What about
all the profits from Damage’s route
? Where have they
gone?’

‘Well t
hat’s the question isn’t it?
’ he said quietly, ‘
Cos
if I haven’t got it, and if Charlie hasn’t got it, then…
’

‘
Where’s the
sodd
ing money gone?
’ I exclaimed in disbelief.

‘
Exactly
,
’ he said, ‘
Where has all the fucking money gone?
Damage put it outside; he said it was safer that way, if we used a banker I mean.
’

I knew that he didn’t mean his local branch of Barclays.
A banker in this context was someone supposedly clean, apparently outside the world of crime
,
who could use that respectability and good standing in the straight world to act as a channel for passing money for laundering.

‘That way we kept the money trail outside the club, it meant we could keep a distance and it couldn’t be compromised by the plod because of links to us.’

I knew it made sense; they would have been worried about the cash giving them a problem, but also about t
h
em giving the cash an issue.

T
he cops could seize money and assets as the proceeds of crime
, so they
would
have
want
ed
to keep the
m
as insulated as possible from the club and its members. There wasn’t much sense in making it if the plod were just going to take it off you again, or worse, use it to
track and
catch you. So it made sense to put a bit of effort into managing the problem properly for the benefit of all concerned.

Wibble was talking while I thought, something about how it helped to keep them clean
,
with no links to the
proceeds
of crime, whilst with the club
’
s strength, they could
lean on anyone
they
needed to
.